Progressivism has had episodic success in American history to the general detriment of constitutional government.  Moreover, one cannot say it belongs to one political party more than the other, even if progressivism tends to be liberal and the Democrat party more liberal than Republicans.  Prominent Republicans have spurred progressivism as much as Democrats.  Indeed both major political parties while in the majority overreached the constitutional bounds of government; spent money we did not have; and woefully ignored the insecurity along our southern border.  The Tea Party Movement as a political phenomenon attests to the failure of America’s Two Party System in modern time. 

 Notwithstanding, both presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and President Obama invoked progressivism so explicitly, as to make it the Democrats’ cause primarily in our immediate political context.  President Obama imagines that he will shape American social and political policy in ways as substantive in terms of change, as the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and the Great Society put together.  This fourth wave of progressivism, however, if it were to happen, would destroy these United States of America.  It is on this basis I assert, that the combined effect of elections in 2010 and 2012 will determine whether we shall continue with the American Dream or give it up and become as European style socialist welfare states.  We are in fact past a certain tipping point already, with sixty percent of American households receiving more government benefits and services as measured in dollars, than they pay back in taxes. 

 The estimates concerning the president’s budget show that “net dependency” is actually increasing to around 70 percent.  Coupled with the way in which the president has undercut U.S. leadership in space and promised unilaterally not to test nuclear weapons or to even use them if attacked, it is clear he has resigned us to second tier rank in terms of international power, at the same time his unsustainable budget deficits consign us to a third world future in terms of the economy.  Health care is particularly essential to this president’s misguided and subversive strategy. 

 Once implemented, i.e., once the government will have subsumed one-sixth of the economy devoted to health care, when this is combined with other public spending the government will have gained control of 50 percent of national production.  We will have ceased being primarily a free market functioning economy.  We will have achieved the progressive dream and killed the American Dream.  When Congressman Phil Hare (D-IL) was questioned about his vote for the health care bill, he spouted out that he simply didn’t care about the U.S. Constitution.  What he cared for more, were all the poor people without health insurance who were dying!  [Gag]. 

 That’s the same, largely disingenuous tactic progressives nearly always resort to: urging Americans to forget the hierarchy of a free society, in which the only Higher Law to the U.S. Constitution is God Himself.  In the tearful name of universal humanitarian compassion, progressives would have you trade the U.S. Constitution or make it a Gumby-like “living” thing, in order to accommodate this or that centralized government program.  As if natural sympathy for any real or alleged victim should justify violation of one’s sacred oath to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution!  Men and women of more character recall that ‘an officer on duty knows no one.’  

 If the Administration were truly interested in addressing problems with the healthcare system, it would have sought and obtained bipartisan support for rather modest and straightforward improvements.  Congress could have ended unfair tax discrimination, whereby people who pay for their own healthcare aren’t allowed the same tax deduction benefit as persons who have healthcare provided them by employers.   High-risk insurance pools at state level could easily be implemented for those with pre-existing conditions, in order for them to get affordable coverage.  Ending health care monopolies and letting people purchase health insurance across state lines would immediately drive costs down, just as it does for car insurance and other services.  Establishing transparency in terms of costs and quality of care would empower consumers and provide the impetus for creative free market solutions. 

 Ah but there’s the rub!  The Administration and Democrat progressives in Congress are hardly interested in addressing problems with the healthcare system per se.  Rather, the Government is interested in progressive policies that will be transformational of the entire system—that is to say, away from the U.S. Constitution and traditional concepts of liberty, towards a different model based on international codes and regimes and notions of freedom reached by the fleeting consensus of democratic majorities.  The whole idea of the health care scam is to create another entitlement program and to push net dependency rate beyond a point of no return.  The health care bill is so huge, its benefits so alluring, that Obama may yet achieve (if the healthcare bill cannot be repealed) his vision of personal grandeur and that of an American people utterly dependent on government benefits for nearly everything important.  He will have cemented the welfare state beyond the reach of constitutional conservatives or the free market, forever.   

_____________________

Wesley Allen Riddle is a retired military officer with degrees and honors from West Point and Oxford.  Widely published in the academic and opinion press, he ran for U.S. Congress (TX-District 31) in the 2004 Republican Primary.  Article loosely based on remarks by Paul Ryan (R-WI) in January 2010.  Email: wes@wesriddle.com.